Youth Incarceration in the United States, by the Numbers

On any given night in the United States in 2015, 47,000 youths were incarcerated and 69% were youths of color. Of that same 47,000, 73% were in for nonviolent offenses. And about 1,000 were held in adult prisons. In the juvenile justice system, the types of settings where young people are held vary widely, from prison-like lock-up facilities to group homes to residential treatment centers. But regardless of what type of placement they’re in, these youths can’t go home.

To fully understand how these young people end up behind bars, it’s necessary to look at who they are. The United States has managed to significantly reduce the amount of incarcerated youths — a 54% reduction from 2001 to 2015, thanks to state reforms that prioritize keeping young people in their homes and communities. But in the same time period, the racial disparity between incarcerated black youths compared with white youths actually rose by 22%, with all but 13 states seeing an increase. Nationwide, black youths were more than five times as likely to be detained or incarcerated as white youths were; in six states, black youths were 10 times as likely to be detained or incarcerated as white youths were.

Even more crucially, a 2016 report for the Sentencing Project explains that “black and white youth are roughly as likely to get into fights, carry weapons, steal property, use and sell illicit substances,” and skip school. In other words, black kids and white kids can behave in the same ways, but black kids overwhelmingly are the ones getting locked up. “What we’re seeing is actually an increase in racial and ethnic disparities. Juvenile justice reforms reducing the use of incarceration are not equally benefiting all kids,” Liz Ryan, president and CEO of the Youth First Initiative, tells Teen Vogue. “Kids charged with similar offenses are not being treated the same way by the juvenile justice system.”

So what types of offenses are kids being incarcerated for? “By and large, kids are locked up for things that not only don’t pose a risk to public safety, but they’re things that, in the adult system, someone might not even be locked up for,” Ryan says. In fact, kids can find themselves in court for behaviors that wouldn’t be crimes at all if they were committed by an adult. These are called “status offenses,” and they include truancy, running away from home, curfew violation, underage drinking, and the alarmingly vague “incorrigibility.”

Status offense cases are decreasing, but not for everyone. From 1995 to 2013, there was a 23% reduction in status offense cases for white youths, but only a 2% reduction for black youths. And even though a federal law, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, is supposed to protect young people from being put in secure detention for committing a status offense, an exception in the law means that youths are regularly locked up for these noncrimes. In 2013, there were 109,000 status offense cases petitioned in juvenile courts across the country, with 7,300 of them involving the use of detention.

That same year, more than half of status offense cases ended in probation. It’s often presented as a less-restrictive alternative, but probation for youths, like for adults, can be a pathway to incarceration. A child who messes up while on probation, like missing a meeting with their probation officer, can then be locked up for the violation. According to federal data, 18% of youths in residential placement in 2015 were there for "technical violations."

The range of other offenses that young people can be detained for may sound more like recognizable crimes. They include drug offenses, property offenses, and “person offenses,” like assault and robbery. But advocates say even youths committed for violent crimes shouldn’t necessarily be considered a risk to public safety. “One of the reasons kids are incarcerated is that they have high needs, even though they are not at high risk to re-offend,” Ryan says. Children who have committed violence may have emotional, behavioral, or mental health needs that aren’t being met. Children who are selling drugs or committing robberies may be doing so for economic survival. Putting those kids behind bars does little for public safety and nothing to provide the necessary support the child needs, advocates say. “Incarceration is being used as a first, not as a last, resort in many states,” says Ryan.

The majority of states have no minimum age of criminal responsibility, and every state in the country has mechanisms to charge children in adult criminal court. As many as 200,000 youths a year are redirected into the adult criminal justice system, and, according to the Campaign for Youth Justice, most of those are for nonviolent crimes, such as misdemeanors and property offenses. In 22 states and Washington, D.C., children as young as 7 can be prosecuted as adults.

Keep in mind, these numbers are what remains after most states have undergone significant reforms meant to address overincarceration of youths. Even though the amount of young people behind bars in the U.S. has fallen significantly since 2001, the fact that 47,000 remained in jail in 2015 shows how far there is to go. And as long as youths of color remain locked up five times more than white youths, the reduction in youth incarceration remains violently, crucially incomplete.

This story is part of Kids Incarcerated, a Teen Vogue series on youth incarceration in the United States for National Youth Justice Awareness Month.